by N. H. Senzai
“Except when someone dies,” Bailey said, staring at her bracelet.
“That is the most difficult loss a family can suffer,” I said quietly.
“Yeah,” Jordyn said, hugging one of her stuffed animals. “Mom losing her baby is the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through.”
“Or losing a friend,” I said, thinking of bright green eyes that I saw for the last time in Turkey.
“Friend?” asked Lea.
“Yeah, Noura’s friend …” Jordyn said, then quickly pressed her lips together, embarrassed.
“Friend?” asked Lea. “What friend?”
“Forget I said anything,” said Jordyn, giving me an apologetic look.
Bailey’s eyes narrowed. “Spill it. What are you guys talking about?”
I took a deep breath. “My best friend, Maryam, died when her family was trying to reach Greece from Turkey. They were all lost at sea when their boat sank.”
“Oh my God,” said Lea, clutching her throat. “That’s awful. My abuela’s family escaped from Cuba on a boat, but luckily, it didn’t sink.”
Bailey looked pale and her hands shook. “I … I can’t talk about this anymore.”
Lea grabbed Jordyn’s laptop from the side table and flipped it open. She asked Jordyn for the password, then went on the internet, hunting for music videos. Soon, lively upbeat music filled the room, lyrics belted out by a guy in leather pants with a guitar.
“Oh, this is a great song,” said Lea, jumping off the bed to dance. “Come on, Jordyn, you need to let loose. You too, Bailey. Noura, come on!”
Grinning, Jordyn stood up and flapped her arms like a chicken. Bailey winced at the image, but Jordyn laughed and dragged her up to join them. Abruptly, the song changed—its beat familiar to my ears.
“I love this Shakira song,” Lea cried, dancing in intricate steps and shaking her hips. “Come on, Noura, don’t be shy.”
Jordyn grabbed my hand and pulled me off the bed as the essence of the rhythm soaked through my skin and into my blood. In a deep, raspy voice, Shakira sang in Spanish and English, but the soul and cadence was from home. Half Lebanese and half Colombian, she mixed both cultures in her music.
I grinned, twirling around as the beat of the drums picked up, blending with the percussion. My hair flew as the girls danced around me … I closed my eyes and it felt as if I were with my Syrian friends watching Arab Idol. Soon, I was lost in the pulse of the music, its tempo taking me back home.
Exhausted and sweaty, we fell on the floor, all danced out.
“That was fun,” Lea croaked, her voice hoarse from singing. “I think we needed to stop being so serious.”
“Uh-huh,” muttered Jordyn, splayed on the floor with her eyes closed.
Lea laughed, her dark eyeliner smudged. “I definitely needed it after working on our social studies project with Nick this morning. He is such a pain. An even bigger pain since he hangs out with my cousin Alexander. It would be okay if it was just at school, but he shows up to family parties too.”
“Nick’s not so bad,” Bailey muttered. “When he saw a picture of Bryan in his dress uniform, he drew an awesome portrait for me. And Nick’s dad … he’s not an easy guy to live with. Nick, his mom, and his younger sister avoid him for the most part.”
“Just because his dad is hateful doesn’t mean he has to be too,” Jordyn said. “He drew that awful picture of me wearing my first bra, and a cartoon of one of your pimples exploding over the entire school …”
“He drew one of Noura too,” Lea said, and then gasped when Jordyn looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“What?” I asked. “What picture?”
Jordyn sat up, flushed, her hair falling over her face.
“Did you throw it away?” Lea asked.
“You didn’t, did you?” Bailey said with a smirk.
“I want to see it,” I said, my heart racing.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Jordyn said.
“No,” I said indignantly. “I want to see it.”
With a tight face, Jordyn grabbed her backpack and pulled out a textbook. Inside was a folded piece of paper. Bailey snatched it from Jordyn’s hand and smoothed it out.
I stared down at the picture and it hit me like a slap across the face. It was me. Without my hijab. And I was bald. I was horrified, both by his awful meanness and the fact that it was good. Really good. Without thinking, I snorted, then began to laugh in short fits.
Jordyn stared at me like I’d gone crazy.
Looking incredulous, Lea said, “I can’t believe you’re laughing.”
“Why are you laughing?” Bailey asked, her eyes hard, almost angry as she stared at the picture.
I kept giggling, trying to talk, but couldn’t. “He … he …” I said, then broke into gales of laughter.
Then Jordyn coughed, which turned into guffaws … Soon everyone was on the floor, laughing … until we were spent.
“Why the heck were you laughing?” Jordyn asked in an astonished voice.
I gave her a weak smile. “Nick would be so surprised … to find out I had all of this,” I said, pointing to my head, “hidden under my hijab.”
After swim practice, Mom dropped me off at the Alwans’ apartment to work on our social studies project. I left my shoes and backpack by the door and followed Noura into the kitchen. “Please have a seat,” she said. “Mama has made harisi, and it’s still warm from the oven.”
I sat beside Noura and across from Ammar, who’d just lifted Ismail into his high chair. For a second, an image flashed through my mind of what our baby might have looked like. He or she would have probably been blond like me.
Mrs. Alwan served us sweet tea and slices of a golden-brown cake. I took my first bite, closing my eyes to savor it. “Mmmm, I love harisi. It has a nutty flavor.”
“The nutty flavor is from tahini, a sesame paste,” Noura said. “Harisi also has a rosewater syrup and some yogurt in the batter.”
I wiped crumbs from my mouth with a napkin. “That’s good to know. My mom will ask what we had for a snack. She’s been googling Syrian recipes.”
“She will have to come for another cooking lesson,” Noura said, turning to her mom and speaking in Arabic.
Noura translated their conversation for me. “Mama said she would enjoy teaching your mother to make Syrian pastries.”
I nodded enthusiastically. “That would be great! I know Mom would love it.”
After we finished eating, Ammar offered to show me his model of the Great Mosque. I followed the twins to his room, relieved that he was taking the lead.
This time I could linger and really study the mosque. Ammar had built it using wooden blocks, cardboard, colored pencils, and glue. It had a large, rectangular courtyard, with a floor covered in geometric designs. “It must have taken you hours to draw the floor.”
“Yes, it seemed like an eternity,” Ammar said.
In the middle of the courtyard rose two fountains, both with domed roofs, and a slender tower with intricate designs and a balcony on top. “Ammar, this is spectacular! Forget an A. I think we’ll get an A plus. Can I take a picture of it with my phone? I’d like to keep it.”
“Of course,” Ammar said, and pointed to the fountains with a proud smile on his face. “Those are for ablutions, cleansing before prayer,” he said, nudging Noura with his elbow. “They work much better than the sink at school, eh?”
Noura rolled her eyes. “Just because you were born five minutes before me, there is no need to be a donkey.”
I smiled at the joking around between Noura and Ammar. Sometimes watching them made me wish for a brother or sister. “While you two argue, I’ll get my laptop. I can use my phone as a hot spot and connect it for research.”
When I got back, Noura and Ammar were seated on the floor with their notebooks and pens. “Do you guys remember the poem I was telling you about? The one in the Statue of Liberty Museum?”
Both of them shook their heads.
“Well, I looked it up. It was written by Emma Lazarus. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …’ ”
“Those words … they touch your heart,” Noura said.
I nodded. “Yeah, they really do, so I’d like to start our presentation with them.”
“That is a very good idea,” Ammar agreed. “Can you show me a picture of the statue?”
“Sure.” I pulled up an image, and Ammar studied it closely.
“I am interested in the measurements of Lady Liberty, and the name of her designer,” he said, “so I can read more about him.”
“You can do that later,” Noura scolded. “Don’t get sidetracked. We have a project to complete.”
Annoyed, Ammar swatted his hand in the air.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “When we finish, we’ll look up the guy who designed the statue.”
Noura impatiently tapped her pen against her notebook. “Jordyn, do not encourage him to rush through his work. We need to focus.”
I hid a smile because Noura reminded me of a mother goose chasing her wayward goslings. “Well, since my part of the presentation is about the history of immigration, I thought Noura could share how it works today. That makes it more relatable, like reading about Anne Frank during the Holocaust.”
Noura furiously scribbled in her notebook. “I think our classmates would be shocked by how difficult it is to immigrate,” she said. “I will interview Baba to be sure I understand the process.”
“Perfect,” I said, opening my laptop and pulling up images of the Great Mosque of Aleppo. “I’ll flash before-and-after images on screen, while Ammar shows off his model and tells the class about how the mosque was damaged during the war.”
“Since coming to America, I have not presented in front of a group,” Ammar said.
“There is no backing out,” Noura said. “I have already started swimming lessons. Now it is your turn.”
Ammar rubbed his scar, and my eyes were drawn to it.
“How is my sister doing with her lessons?” he asked.
I remembered the way Noura had trembled in the pool during her first lesson, but had treaded water for thirty seconds during her next one. “She’s very brave,” I said.
Grinning mischievously, Ammar reached out and lightly thumped Noura’s hand. “I am glad,” he said. “My sister never backs down from a challenge, but I am the one who is always victorious!”
Noura pointed her index finger at him. “You are a donkey!”
Mrs. Alwan stuck her head in the door and spoke to them in Arabic. “What’d she say?” I asked.
“Mama told us to mind our manners,” Noura said. “It is rude to argue in front of guests.”
“Ah, that wasn’t really arguing,” I said. “Just kidding around the way Bailey and her brother, Bryan, used to. He called it talking smack.”
“I didn’t know Bailey had a brother,” Noura said.
“Yeah, Bryan—his name is spelled out in beads on the bracelet Bailey wears. He used to be our swim coach before he joined the army.”
“When you speak of Bryan, your eyes remind me of a storm cloud,” Ammar said.
“Oh … I guess that’s because he was killed in Afghanistan. Bryan was a great brother, and a great coach. Bailey was devastated.”
Noura gasped. “I am so sorry to hear this. Everybody loses during a war.”
Ammar nudged Noura with his shoulder. “It’s better not to think too much about the past, but to be grateful we have a second chance.”
I thought about what he’d said and jotted it down in my notebook. “That would make a great ending for our presentation,” I said.
Ammar’s eyebrows drew together, and he cocked his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Thanks to immigration, we have a second chance,” I repeated. “That should be the theme to our presentation!”
With our social studies project almost complete, Ammar and I looked forward to our first service project. A service project was something the school did every year, but doing a coastal cleanup had been Penny’s suggestion. The seventh- and eighth-grade classes had voted, and it edged out volunteering at the soup kitchen by ten votes. So, reporting for duty, I stood on the shoreline of Tampa Bay, looking out at mile after mile of crystal-blue water.
I saw the bay every single day from one vantage point or another, but this was the first time I had been close enough to get my toes wet. Now, as I probed the water’s blue depths, my pulse was steady and my breathing even. I could skirt the shoreline and not feel as if I were drowning. I could even tread water or do the doggy paddle—thanks to Jordyn. But still, I kept my distance. No point in living dangerously.
I walked at the farthest edge of the group as we made our way along the sandy shoreline. Both the seventh and eighth grades were participating so it was a pretty big group of kids, interspersed with teachers and chaperones. Up ahead, I caught a glimpse of red hair: Nick. An image of the drawing he’d made of me flashed in my mind, reigniting an ember of anger. So much talent wasted on such a donkey.
Beside him strode Alexander, who it turned out was Lea’s cousin. He was an eighth grader and I remembered seeing him a few times—once in the courtyard when Ammar and I had been praying. With his curling dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes, he reminded me of Zakaria, a boy who had lived in our apartment complex in Aleppo. All the girls in the building had a crush on him. But unlike Zakaria, Alexander seemed to have an arrogance about him. Even though most kids were in shorts and T-shirts, he was wearing an expensive-looking button-down shirt rolled up to the elbows.
As one of the chaperones helped a girl whose shoe had gotten stuck in mud, Alexander and Nick elbowed a short, sandy-haired boy, trying to push him into the water. They would have succeeded, except Coach Stevens blew his whistle and called them over to him. When we passed by, Nick looked a little embarrassed, but Alexander stood with his arms crossed, staring at Coach Stevens with a smirk on his face.
“There he goes again,” sighed Lea, who’d appeared behind me. “Alexander is always getting in trouble, especially when he’s around Nick. But my aunt and uncle are so busy with their car dealership that they barely pay attention to what he’s doing.”
“Okay, everyone!” called Mark, a middle-aged man in khaki shorts and aviator sunglasses, who was the habitat restoration director. “We’re going to stop right about here,” he said, climbing on a small sand dune so we could all see him.
The mass of bodies slowed and shifted, finding spots around him. Ammar, who was usually close by, keeping an eye on me, was near the middle, talking to Joel. My heart constricted. Earlier this week, when Ammar had been late, we’d been running toward the prayer room. I’d found the door ajar and was about to burst through when I skidded to a stop. I held up my hand, silently telling Ammar to pause. A boy sat on the soft, paisley-patterned carpet Lea’s father had donated. He’d been hunched over with his shoulders shaking and tears running down his face. It was Joel.
Concern shone in Ammar’s eyes. “I’m going inside,” he’d whispered. “The gym is empty. Quickly pray there.”
Later, at home, he’d told me what had happened. He’d sat in the room after finishing his prayers, until Joel had turned to him. And without any prompting, Joel had told him that his mother had breast cancer and had just had a serious surgery. When Mama found out, she’d baked a batch of maamoul cookies and sent it to school with us for Joel and his family.
The habitat restoration director’s voice pulled my attention back to him. “I’m so glad you could join us this afternoon,” he said, in a booming voice. “We’re going to spend the next two hours doing some trash cleanup, or marine debris, as we call it around here, which is a worldwide problem.”
Penny stood in front, giving Mark her full attention as she and Daksha took notes.
“An estimated fourteen billion pounds of trash is dumped in the ocean every year,” Mark continued. “It’s not only ugly, but dangerou
s to marine life and human health. Since many forms of debris are nonbiodegradable, like plastic bottles, straws, and bags, they cause problems for years to come.”
“Want to be partners?” asked Lea, handing me a bag and a pointy stick.
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention toward the end.”
“You didn’t miss anything too complicated,” Lea said, grinning. “Aim the pointy end of the stick at some trash, pick it up, and stick it in your bag.”
I laughed. “I think I can do that.” I took the stick and aimed at a plastic bottle. I missed, and it rolled away down a sandy slope. I hurried after it, cornering it near a bush. As I took aim again, I saw Jordyn and Bailey, standing together a few feet away.
“You don’t spend time with us anymore,” Bailey complained, her eyes shining with tears.
Surprised, I stopped. And without thinking, I slipped behind the bush.
“I don’t mean to leave you out,” Jordyn said. Her shoulders slumped. “It’s just that I’ve gotten so busy working with Noura and Ammar on our social studies project and helping Noura learn how to swim. Plus, my mom has me going to all these sessions with her therapist.”
“Noura and Ammar shouldn’t take up all your time,” grumbled Bailey. “What are you, their social worker?”
Social worker? Heat flared across my cheeks. I wondered whether Jordyn was pretending to be my friend because she felt sorry for me.
“C’mon, Bailey,” Jordyn said. “You know it’s not like that. They’ve had a really hard time. Coming as refugees, their mosque burning …”
“We’ve had a hard time too,” Bailey shot back. “Bryan is dead because of these people …”
These people … I clenched the stick so hard it pinched the soft skin of my palm. How could Bailey think we had anything to do with her brother’s death?
Jordyn’s lips tightened. “Hey, that’s not fair,” she said. “I know you’re still hurting about Bryan, and I miss him too, but …”
Bailey took a ragged breath. “I just want things to go back to the way they were …”